UP, the National University, Extends Help to the Nation

A week long of class suspension would probably mean a week full of rest and recreation.

But for students in the Philippines, a week without school is the time to lend help to a country that has been devastated by what authorities call as the worst flood in Philippine history.

By Cake Evangelista

The week-long suspension of classes was an opportunity to work, not play, for students helping out at the Church of the Risen Lord in UP Diliman. Around the metro, schools and institutions are also busy with relief operations. Photo by Joseph Pascual.

Students from the University of the Philippines’s (UP) flagship campus in Diliman, Quezon City in Metro Manila organized SAGIP ISKO (Save the Scholar), a relief operation drive that seeks to deliver relief goods and other basic necessities to people who have been affected by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” (international name, Ketsana).

Consistent with the initiatives of the university administration and student councils, the UP Diliman community consolidated all efforts from its colleges and student organizations in helping out the different communities around the campus that have been severely affected by the abnormal weather disturbance.

Among the activities of UP SAGIP ISKO have been organizing, repacking, and distributing relief items which included food, potable water, toiletries, clothing, and medicine to communities in need. They also have been conducting assistance for stranded, flooded, missing, and sick UP Diliman students and employees. Its headquarters is at the Church of the Risen Lord, Laurel Street, UP Diliman Campus.

UP SAGIP ISKO delivered last Sept. 28 more than 800 bags of relief items in the surrounding Diliman communities.

On its second day, Sept. 29, UP SAGIP ISKO, with more than 500 volunteers and donors, was able to provide as many as 3,200 bags of relief items to the different communities in Quezon City, Rizal, Bulacan, Pasig and Marikina.

UP SAGIP ISKO is also in consolidation efforts with neighboring relief operations such as those of the Ateneo De Manila University community. It has also coordinated with direct service delivery organizations like the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), wherein volunteers have been deployed to the relief and clean-up operations of the PNRC in Cainta, Rizal.

Tropical Storm “Ondoy” hit the Philippines last Sept. 26, bringing a month’s worth of rainfall in the country’s capital Manila and neighboring areas in just a few short hours. The storm caused widespread flooding, destruction of houses and other infrastructure, and displacement of thousands of families.

As of this writing, the National Disaster Coordinating Council reportedly announced that the agricultural and infrastructural damage brought by the onslaught of “Ondoy” has reached an estimated amount of 4.6 billion pesos. It also affected as many as 1.93 million Filipinos.

For more information, please visit http://updusc.multiply.com

Photos are available at this address: http://updusc.multiply.com/photos/album/26/UP_Sagip_Isko